“Italo Calvino said the artist reveals that bit of truth hidden at the bottom of every lie. Art is all about the art of lying. The artist’s imperative is to create a supreme fiction, a lie that, paradoxically, discloses a truth. It's precisely this kind of paradox that Calvino and Fellini adored.”
On truth and lies, in O Estado de São Paolo (November, 2003)
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Damian Pettigrew16
Canadian filmmakerRelated quotes
Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica
Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-1947
“Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer
Source: 1920s, "Picasso Speaks" (1923), p. 315.
“Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.”
Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer
Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming (2013)
Context: We writers – and especially writers for children, but all writers – have an obligation to our readers: it's the obligation to write true things, especially important when we are creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were – to understand that truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.
“The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.”
Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.”
Theodor W. Adorno book Minima Moralia
Kunst ist Magie, befreit von der Lüge, Wahrheit zu sein.
E. Jephcott, trans. (1974), § 143
Minima Moralia (1951)
Ritwik Ghatak (1925–1976) Bengali filmmaker and script writer
[Ghatak, Ritwik, Cinema and I, 1987, Ritwik Memorial Trust, 75]